


Endless refrain

by jasmiinitee



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Case fic (kinda), Endeavour Morse Has ADHD, Gen, One Shot, give me that stupid 1960s aesthetic, i guess we'll never know, is this projecting or is this character analysis??, just guys being dudes, morse secretly likes some pop, not a song fic but a 'song stuck in my head' fic, pre S3, slice of life i guess, workplace friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-21 15:12:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18704869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jasmiinitee/pseuds/jasmiinitee
Summary: dah-di-dah di-dah dah-dahMorse stared at the keys of the typewriter, sitting forward in his chair again, feet flat on the floor, clicking the pen in his hand, reaching for the crossword pages with the other.He looked at the clock: it had been twenty minutes since he'd last touched the typewriter. He swallowed and stared at the papers, trying to make sense of the way he'd arranged them for himself.He had no idea why it had got stuck in his head so firmly, the inane refrain of such a silly song.





	Endless refrain

_dah-di-dah di-dah dah-dah_  
_dah-di-dah di-dah dah-dah_

Morse stared at the keys of the typewriter, sitting forward in his chair, one heel quietly bouncing against the floor, turning the pen in his hand, leaning his face against the other.

A summary for Mr Bright of the Blackbird Leys harrassment case. Now that people were leaving for the day, it was quiet enough to focus, for once, and he needed to finish the report. He knew that well enough - had heard of it from Jakes and Thursday and Mr Bright all, several times that day, and he'd nodded and agreed and said his 'yes, sir's. It wasn't a difficult task. He could have easily done it earlier, and could easily do it before the night shift started and the hall would be full of noise again.  
The lamp over Jakes's desk kept flickering annoyingly, had done it all afternoon, and he'd meant to get up to turn it off but he'd forgot all about it when he'd finally started typing and going through the labelled photographs and witness statements. Now it was bothering him again. He should have got up to turn it off. He should have done it immediately, but he should have also been typing, and if he focused on his work, it wasn't really any trouble at all.

 _dah-di-dah di-dah dah-dah_  
_dah-di-dah di-dah dah-dah_  
_dah-di-dah di-dah dah-dah_  
_was in my arms and swore to me_

Morse stared at the keys of the typewriter, sitting sideways in his chair, one leg crossed over the other, clicking the pen in his hand, worrying his ear with the other.

He looked at the clock: it had been twenty minutes since he'd last touched the typewriter. He swallowed and stared at the papers, trying to make sense of the way he'd arranged them for himself, but for some reason it was tricky to try and remember which paper he'd been planning to go through next. One pile was for those he'd already marked in his first draft of the report, the one he'd done by hand in his notebook, one was for those that would require careful paraphrasing, one for very straight-forward typing, one for in-betweens. He had the map and the addresses on the left-hand side of the desk. He could have picked any document and started with it.  
It wasn't music anyone with half a brain would listen to. There was no lyrical storyline, next to no melody to follow, and the composition was laughably simple. It was American, for God's sake, and hardly anything good ever came from there, except for a few contemporary poets, maybe. He had no idea why it had got stuck in his head so firmly, the inane refrain of such a silly song.  
He had a feeling it hadn't been Tony's record. Of course he'd heard more of it somewhere else later, but he remembered Tony's laugh when he said he'd never listened to that kind of music. They never listened to it in their house, never would have. But it wasn't Tony's, Anthony had always been more about fine arts and politics and foreign languages. But he knew it was someone he'd used to know, who had always played it after school. There had been a black and white photograph on the cover, a few foolish and loud and too busy songs on the record.

 _was in my arms and swore to me_  
_was in my arms and swore to me_  
_was in my arms and swore to me_  
_was in my arms and swore to me_

Morse stared at the keys of the typewriter, sitting sideways in his chair, feet flat on the floor, clicking the pen in his hand, rubbing his wrist with the other.

The series of vandalism in Blackbird Leys was small-scale, but absolutely ridiculous in intensity. The witness statements all said different things, but one thing that repeated time after time was the ringing of doorbells and buzzers at night. Whatever followed was another thing. Mostly on Tuesdays and Fridays. They'd caught a suspect for interrogation yesterday, but he said he was only visiting a friend, and the friend had later confirmed his story.  
He should have already read through the notes, through Jakes's chicken scratch, typed the report and left home. There he could have put on a good record and taken a quick sip of whisky to calm down. Maybe tea, that might have helped too. Tea first or whisky first? Would the tea keep him up? He couldn't remember what he had to eat, no matter how many times he thought it over, but there was bound to be some toast at least. Or maybe not. Jam, maybe, and porridge oats if nothing else. Though maybe it would be too late to start eating when he got home. He could go grocery shopping tomorrow if he had time.

 _dah-di-dah di-dah dah-dah_  
_dah-di-dah di-dah dah-dah_  
_was in my arms and swore to me_  
_was in my arms and swore to me_

Morse stared at the keys of the typewriter, sitting straight up in his chair, one leg crossed over the other, turning the pen in his hand, tapping a rhythm on his thigh with the thumb of the other.

No, it certainly wasn't Tony who'd played Elvis on and on. It must have been someone at school, some night when he'd managed to stay out with the rest of them, or maybe later one of the girls that they all knew, now that he thought about it. Someone had said his voice was like warm honey and his dark eyes and hair so darling, he remembered that and he knew that it wasn't something he'd come up with himself. Morse hadn't said anything about it, couldn't say what colour the eyes were in a black and white album cover. Later he'd seen a photo of Elvis in colour, of course, sometimes you couldn't avoid things like that. Dark hair and brown eyes, all right.

Why on Earth would someone play Elvis at the station, though? It had been during lunch, he and Thursday and Jakes had just got back in and Jakes had offered to brew them all a cup of tea, if anyone was interested. He'd followed along, and the much debated record player of the break room had been revolving on and on. Men laughing and ignoring it, he trying to ignore it and shrink away from the room as quickly as possible. It was the song PC Pigott had been playing over and over again one night in Newtown, when they'd both just started in the force, that was where he knew it from. It had stuck in his head like tar, the one line and the rhythm of a song that wasn't even real music.

 _was in my arms and swore to me_  
_was in my arms and swore to me_  
_was in my arms and swore to me_  
_dah-di-dah di-dah dah-dah_

Morse stared at the keys of the typewriter, sitting forward in his chair again, feet flat on the floor, clicking the pen in his hand, reaching for the crossword pages with the other.  
He looked at the clues and words, but didn't feel like continuing the puzzle after all. He looked up at the typewriter again.

_was in my arms and swore to me_

He got up and walked to Jakes's desk to turn the light off. He'd left a good while ago and left Morse to work alone. He pursed his lips and glared at the typewriter again, rubbing the back of his neck. It had been over half an hour since he'd touched the report last. It was about Mr Henley's daughter's words, her strange description of youths making noise all about the lane at night, but how they clearly weren't locals of the new houses there, too well-dressed, too low-pitched and leisure-like.  
He didn't want to think that undergraduates from the colleges would go out of their way to terrorise new working class housing at night, but he thought of it anyway, and he'd seen Thursday and Jakes think of it too with the questioning way they'd looked at him. As if he would have known why and how and by whom.  
A small-scale low-priority case. But intense and vicious for a few weeks, and no doubt harrowing for those who had to endure it.

 _dah-di-dah di-dah dah-dah_  
_this girl was in my arms and swore to me_  
_dah-di-dah di-dah dah-dah_

He'd get the cup of tea now, to keep himself awake and help him focus, to help him gather his wits. Whisky later, to get some sleep. That was the reason Morse picked up his crosswords and pencil and headed for the chronically smoke-filled communal room. He needed to get out of the office to see different walls and let his legs move a little, so he could slave over the last report again and type out what they knew.  
Not a lot, but they knew a group of young men had been ringing doorbells, making noise and soiling car windows. Luckily nothing had been broken - yet.  
Well-dressed, likely from a college. They weren't from Blackbird Leys and were hard to track down, so until further complaints, calls or tips the case would remain as it was. Unsolved and unimportant.  
But he just couldn't type it yet.

 _was in my arms and swore to me_  
_was in my arms and swore to me_  
_was in my arms and swore to me_

After putting the kettle on, Morse sat down by the record player and the few poorly treated records in their sleeves. College hooligans weren't at all impossible, considering how even at a police station people seemed to have trouble treating each other's property respectfully. They were all left scattered from lunch. The whole thing should have been taken away, it caused distractions to proper steady working.  
Morse took the record out of its sleeve and set it down. Thank God it was a single. He would have screamed if he'd had to look for the correct groove of a full album to try and find the song. He set the needle down and picked up his crosswords again.  
He no longer had to listen to an endless noise in his head when it came from the record. Warm honey, maybe, though he didn't know if it was going to help for long.

 _dah-di-dah di-dah dah-dah_  
_dah-di-dah di-dah dah-dah_  
_dah-di-dah di-dah dah-dah_  
_A very old friend_  
_Came by today_  
_Cos he was telling everyone in town_  
_About the love that he'd just found_  
_And Marie's the name_  
_Of his latest flame_

Morse listened to the record, sitting sideways in the chair, bouncing one leg restlessly to the rhythm, waiting for the water to boil, holding the newspaper in his hands.

 _dah-di-dah di-dah dah-dah_  
_dah-di-dah di-dah dah-dah_  
_He talked and talked_  
_And I heard him say_  
_That she had the longest blackest hair_  
_The prettiest green eyes anywhere_  
_And Marie's the name_  
_Of his latest flame_  
_dah-di-dah di-dah dah-dah_  
_dah-di-dah di-dah dah-dah_

Morse listened to the song through to the end, and put it on again from the beginning. He looked at the crossword clues, and Elvis from a few years ago sang, and he got up to make himself a cup of tea. It was too hot and it burned his tongue when he went to sip it too quickly, so he set it down.

 _Though I smile the tears inside were a-burning_  
_da-di-dah-di-dah da-di-dah-di-dah_  
_I wished him luck and then he said a-good-bye_  
_da-di-dah-di-dah da-di-dah-di-dah_  
_And he was gone but still his words kept returning_  
_da-di-dah-di-dah da-di-dah-di-dah_  
_What else was there for me to do but cry_

Morse put the record on a third time, clicking his pen to the recursive rhythm, and it finally turned into background noise instead of something at the top of his mind. He took the tea cup with him and sat back down to work through a few hints on his puzzle. When he heard the scratch of the needle, he lifted it back to the beginning.

 _dah-di-dah di-dah dah-dah_  
_dah-di-dah di-dah dah-dah_

He hadn't thought about the colleges before. Mr Henley's daughter had said something about scarves, hadn't she? Certainly. She did go into oddly specific details in her description of events over the last few weeks. He had to check the witness statement again when he continued working on his report. If he only could remember which colours she had mentioned, if she had, he could have immediately known which college the culprits came from. (Unless, of course, they just had scarves because it was chilly out, or one was from a different college than the rest.) Beaufort had spring green and fuchsia, Beaumont's colours were brick-red and white and grey. Might have been red that she'd said, a red scarf. Perhaps she'd had to see more of the hooligans over the evenings, if they drove to Blackbird Leys frequently.

 _Would you believe_  
_That yesterday_  
_This girl was in my arms and swore to me_  
_She'd be mine eternally_  
_And Marie's the name_  
_Of his latest flame_  
_dah-di-dah di-dah dah-dah_  
_dah-di-dah di-dah dah-dah_

Morse wrote down an answer on his puzzle, CLIMBING IVY (8,3) and another, UNBURDEN (8). Only one unsolved clue remained, and he set the needle back to the beginning. "Surprisingly nasty butterflies" had been bothering him since he'd first looked at the clues, but what an idiot he'd been, of course he was looking for ANTSY (5). How had something so easy taken him so long to think of?  
There was a knock on the door, and the door opened. Morse huffed to himself. He'd solve the next one quicker, he'd had a hard time trying to focus on anything that evening.

PC Strange stood at the door and Morse turned to look at him. They both stared at each other in surprise.

'Oh, it's just you,' Strange said, smiled a little, and was clearly trying to hide a proper laugh at his expense. Morse knit his eyebrows together.  
'Looks like it,' Morse said, unsure of how to respond. 'Good evening.'  
'You made tea?' Strange pointed at the kettle and stepped inside. Morse nodded and sat up, reaching for his own cup. He'd forgotten all about it, and a sip confirmed that it had had plenty of time to cool down already. He frowned at it, but forced the cool and bitter tea down before getting up again. Maybe a splash more of hot water would revive it to a drinkable temperature.

Morse set the needle back to its place at the start of the record, when it scratched at the end and the humm of the familiar rhythm died out once more. He stood next to Strange with his cold tea, waiting for him to make his own first. And for some reason Strange was chuckling under his breath again.  
'What's so funny?' Morse narrowed his eyes.  
'Elvis,' he said. 'Didn't know that was yours. Me and Johnson tried to ask the lads about it last week, no one said it was theirs. They just keep piling up.'  
'No,' Morse cut him off and lifted a hand. 'It's not mine. Why would it be?' He didn't listen to Elvis.  
'Oh?' Strange's eyebrows climbed up and he took a sip of his tea. Morse forced down another cold mouthful of tea, before pouring more hot water into his cup.  
'Oh?' he echoed.  
'No, I just thought... maybe your taste wasn't as funny as I thought. You, sat here, listening to that,' he said and nodded towards the record player.

 _dah-di-dah di-dah dah-dah_  
_dah-di-dah di-dah dah-dah_

'Oh, that,' Morse said. He stared at the record player and felt his ears prickle with an uncomfortable warmth. He did listen to bloody Elvis, didn't he. 'I don't, it just...'  
'Rather that than opera, matey,' Strange said and sat down in the opposite chair. He picked up the newspaper. 'You mind?'  
'No, go ahead.' He'd already solved the puzzle.

 _Would you believe_  
_That yesterday_  
_This girl was in my arms and swore to me_  
_She'd be mine eternally_

'I don't like Elvis,' he said firmly.  
Strange looked up, looked down at his paper, then up at him again. 'Right.'  
'I don't.'  
'If you say so, matey,' Strange said. 'I didn't ask if you did. Just said it sounds like you do.'  
The music stopped. They both gave the record player a suspicious glance, as if it wouldn't have stayed silent after turning so long. Morse had no idea how many times he'd listened to the song.

'I'm only here to finish a report on the vandalism in Blackbird Leys,' Morse said. 'For Mr Bright.'  
'Oh. Well, I'm on my way there, in a quarter or so,' Strange said, checking his watch. 'They told someone to go and see if everything's in shape. Since there's been that funny business.'  
'Right.'  
'Do you want to come with me?' Strange asked.  
'With you? To...?'  
'If I see anything, there could be something for your report.'  
It was actually a very good idea, and Morse nodded. 'Of course. I'll just... uh...' They might see someone with a college scarf. He'd been thinking about those. 'I must check through the witness statements first,' he said. 'There's a few details I need if I'm trying to find out anything.'  
'Sure. I'll come and fetch you.'

Morse set his cup down and turned to leave. He turned back to pick up his pen and give Strange a sharp look.  
'I don't listen to Elvis,' he said once more, as if it would make it any less false. 'I don't like any of it.' Despite the fact that his head was clear again, after that warm honey voice, and his hands had stopped itching and he could look around himself and think again.  
'Right,' Strange said and nodded once more, giving him another amused smile. Granted, it was a very awkward way to say goodbyes.  
'I'll see you in a minute.'  
'I'll come and fetch you,' Strange said again.

**Author's Note:**

> Inattentive attention deficiency is a bitch but Morse secretly enjoying some less operatic tunes is also a trope I really love, so here's to both.
> 
> Go listen to [Elvis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59pOE3OmUi8), guys.


End file.
